


The Price of Legacy

by cyparissus



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 13:19:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2694539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyparissus/pseuds/cyparissus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SPOILERS for Dragon Age: Inquisition, do not read if you have not finished the game.</p>
<p><i>"Please, Fenris. This is my fault, my </i>legacy<i> and I… I need to make it right.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Price of Legacy

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically my own little explanation for why Fenris would allow Hawke to go off alone, and what would happen afterwards.
> 
> Also based on/inspired by [this party banter between Varric and Cassandra.](http://s25.postimg.org/d61pgqr33/great.png)
> 
> I dedicate this fic to Kim, without whom I may have never owned the game at all.

“ _Please, Fenris_ ,” Hawke had said, and Fenris had hesitated. He’s never quite mastered the art of denying that particular face, the one with his eyebrows pushed together and his eyes pleading.

“ _This is my fault, my_ legacy _and I… I need to make it right._ ” Hawke had taken his hands then, held them close to his chest and closed his eyes

“ _I know I can’t stop you from following me but please… Stay. If I lost you, made you pay for my mistakes…_ ” Hawke had trailed off, shaking his head, his fingers tightening almost painfully around Fenris’.

“ _Please, Fenris,_ ” he had repeated and Fenris’ heart had ached because he knew he wouldn’t follow. He’d just nodded, bowed his head and let Hawke pull him into a tight embrace.

Now, he desperately wished he’d punched him.

Varric’s latest letter is quivering and crumpling in his grip. The tone is significantly more serious than Varric’s typical letter, very much lacking in the jokes and flowery language that tend to throw Fenris off. The events he mentions have obviously shaken him, but Fenris can’t spare any time to be concerned for his friend because he’s so busy being furious with Hawke. He’d promised to return, and instead had gone running off somewhere else without bothering to stop off at home and let Fenris know where he was off to.

Fenris had immediately gone out to gut a slaver’s hideout he’d been tracking recently and work out his frustration by embedding his sword ( _the one Hawke had given him_ , he remembered every time he looked down at it) in a few dozen slaver’s heads. By the time he staggered back through his door he was caked in dried blood and exhausted, more from his fury that had faded to despair than any particular physical exertion.

He was so tired that it took him too long to realize that Isabela was sitting up at his table with a candle burning, drinking his wine. When he does see her he just frowns, and her eyebrows go up.

“Wow, Varric was not wrong about your brood. You never do things by halves, do you?” Isabela stands and then tuts at him, sitting him down in the chair opposite her. Fenris looks down at himself, and sees what she means: aside from the blood his clothes are covered in mud and hanging off of him in places, and one of his gloves is missing. He’s gotten too used to Hawke noticing that kind of thing. She pours him a glass of wine and puts it into his hands and then sits back down across from him. Fenris sips the wine and sees the letter Varric had sent sitting out on the table (it’s covered in creases; in his anger Fenris had crumpled it up only to smooth it out when he’d felt guilty for treating Varric’s words--and by proxy Varric himself--in such a manner). There’s a similar letter next to it, which Fenris assumes is the letter Varric sent Isabela, which guided her here in the first place.

Isabela waits until Fenris has finished his glass and poured him another to speak.

“So, Hawke’s run off to find the Wardens. I’m surprised you didn’t follow him to fight Corypheus in the first place,” Isabela says, glancing over her letter before she stops, looks up at Fenris with a sharp glint in her eye, “He didn’t run off on you, did he?” She seems a bit murderous at the prospect, and Fenris is touched by the sentiment.

“No, nothing like that. We spoke about it. He asked me to stay,” Fenris says, and Isabela raises her eyebrow again.

“I’ve never known you to bend at Hawke’s self-sacrificial tendencies,” Isabela says, and does not flinch or react when Fenris shoots her a glare.

“It wasn’t like that,” Fenris says, rolling his glass between his hands, “He was blaming himself. Said he needed to fix it. He said he… Didn’t want me to pay for his mistake. Even though that was--”

“ _Bullshit_!” Isabela finished for him, and he looked up, startled by the anger in her voice and expression, but nodded.

“Yes,” Fenris said with a sigh, “But whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter. He believes it. And I thought, if our places were reversed, and he came with me, I would spend more time worrying about him than making it right. So I stayed.” Fenris gulps down the rest of his wine and wishes that he hadn’t been so accommodating; obviously Hawke was as little suited to taking care of himself as Fenris was. After a long, quiet moment, Isabela blew out a breath.

“Well,” she said, resting her elbows on the table and leaning closer to Fenris, “I suppose it doesn’t matter now. He’s run off to find the Wardens, on his own, like an idiot, and he’s left his favorite idiots behind. We can’t let him get away with that now, can we, Fenris?” Isabela smiles at him from across the table with a glint in her eye that Fenris remembers from nights playing Wicked Grace, from the moment right before she cleaned everyone out. A slow smile spreads on Fenris’ face for the first time in weeks.

“What are you suggesting?” Fenris asks, leaning over the table too. Isabela grins like a shark.

“I say we don’t let Hawke have all the fun,” she says, and Fenris feels something like purpose stirring in his chest again.

They start the next day; Isabela runs off to find Merrill while Fenris tracks down Aveline and Carver. It’s much easier than he’d thought, because apparently the Warden’s Calling has stopped and Carver is recovering. Varric had written Aveline a letter as well, and the moment Fenris suggests going after Hawke both Carver and Aveline are on board. Aveline unfortunately cannot leave Kirkwall, no matter how much she wants to drop everything and follow Hawke into another adventure. Carver is much more amenable, even though he calls his brother a handful of rude things that Fenris cannot help but agree with wholeheartedly.

“I don’t see how he expects to get into Weisshaupt without an actual Warden to vouch for him,” Carver says, and follows Fenris out.

They gather, the four of them, and Fenris and Isabela discuss going to pick up Varric as well, but Isabela points out that if he’d wanted to leave the Inquisition he wouldn’t have let Hawke go alone, instead of sending letters to the rest of Hawke’s friends, subtly nudging them into going after Hawke for him.

They’re able to move quickly thanks to some horses provided by Isabela, and they follow Hawke’s trail all the way up to Weisshaupt.

Fenris doesn’t actually pay that much attention to how they get inside or who they talk to on the way; there’s one name echoing around in his skull and the moment he sees Hawke he’s across the room in moments. The surprise on Hawke’s face as Fenris grabs the front of his shirt makes him furious, like Hawke was expecting to do this alone, like he wasn’t expecting Fenris to track him down. He slams Hawke into the wall and ignores the cries of shock and warning behind him, not realizing he’s glowing until he sees his own hands fisting Hawke’s shirt.

He means to punch Hawke--he’s been thinking about it for days--but when Hawke realizes what’s going on he sags, totally relaxed under Fenris’ hands but his face pinches and his eyes go sad and haunted.

“Fenris,” Hawke says, and he sounds just about as wrecked as Fenris feels so Fenris doesn’t punch him--he kisses him.

“You idiot,” Fenris breathes when he pulls away from Hawke’s mouth, pressing his forehead against Hawke’s cheek while Hawke wheezes out a laugh. Fenris is no longer glowing and Hawke’s arms are tucked around his waist, and behind them, Isabela coughs.

They both turn to look and see a room full of Wardens and their friends trying very hard not to stare. Hawke laughs again, and when Fenris looks back at him the haunted look in his eye has faded somewhat.

“We’ll talk later,” Hawke promises, and after Fenris nods he kisses his mouth once before moving away, back towards the others, who all get hugs in turn. Even Carver seems to welcome the affection, despite his grumbling.

They trade introductions, information, news and plans and the whole time Fenris refuses to move further than an arm’s length away from Hawke, which Hawke doesn’t seem to mind at all. By the time they’re finished--for the day at least--it’s well after sundown, and Fenris follows Hawke to a small room. Fenris carefully lays his sword on the floor, well within reach of the bed, before sitting next to Hawke on the bed.

Hawke takes his hand and they sit quietly like that for a while, until Fenris can’t take it anymore.

“You said you’d come back,” Fenris says, no longer furious at the prospect but desperate to understand what had shaken Hawke so badly and driven him to keep his distance. Fenris wasn’t used to being on this side of the skittish lover. Hawke squeezes his hand and brings it up to his mouth to kiss before speaking.

“Varric told you what happened?” Hawke asks without meeting Fenris’ curious gaze.

“Not everything, I think. He said you went into the fade and stopped a demon from helping Corypheus. You saved the Wardens.”

“Helped stop. The Inquisitor did most of the heavy lifting. And not all the Wardens made it,” Hawke says, and that sad, haunted look comes into his eyes again.

“Tell me about it,” Fenris says gently, taking his hand out of Hawke’s to plant it on the back of his neck, putting his other hand on Hawke’s knee. Hawke closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, leaning into the touch.

“The demon could read… Fears. It taunted us, all of us, but it was easy enough to shrug off while fighting demons. It said… It spoke of Bethany. Mother. And you, of course, and Carver. Varric. It seems no matter what I do the people I care for are bound to suffer.” Hawke laughs, bitterly, and the sounds breaks Fenris’ heart. He leans in close, moving his hand from Hawke’s knee to his far shoulder and tilting his forehead against Hawke’s temple. He wants so desperately in that moment to wrap himself around Hawke like a blanket and keep him safe and warm.

“Stroud didn’t make it,” Hawke says, his voice hoarse and wrecked as he presses closer to Fenris like he approves of Fenris’ blanket impersonation. Fenris pauses for a moment, searching his memory for the name.

“The Warden who saved Carver?” Fenris asks, and gets a nod from Hawke, “I’m so sorry.”

“It was almost me. It should have been me. Stroud insisted.” Fenris is irate for a moment at Hawke’s words, that he would think so little of his own life. But he knows it’s less a case of Hawke caring too little for himself and more a case of Hawke caring too much for everyone else, and in any case, this isn’t the time to berate Hawke for his idiotically heroic tendencies. There will be time for that later. Now, Hawke is making a heartbreakingly mournful sound and Fenris keeps his mouth shut.

He wraps his arms around Hawke and lays him down gently, laying next to him and holding him close while he shakes. Fenris still feels awkward and unsuited to the task of comfort, even after years of Hawke subjecting himself to Andraste’s Mabari over and over (even though it made him cry every time), but he wouldn’t be anywhere else in this moment. He strokes his hands up and down Hawke’s back and mutters low reassurances to him, barely allowing an inch of space between them the whole time. For a while they just lay like that, until Hawke’s breathing stops shaking and he speaks again.

“I knew if I saw you I would just break down. Which I did,” he says, his voice still shaky and hoarse but containing more of the good humor he usually displayed, “And I wanted to just… Keep going. So I pushed it all away and kept going.” Fenris knows that feeling intimately and he can’t bring himself to blame Hawke for his actions.

“It’s all right,” Fenris says, and Hawke lets out a sigh, seeming to relax further at his words. A thought stirs inside Fenris’ mind and he debates over wording for a moment before expressing it, “If I did ever… Retire,” Fenris says carefully, “As long as I was at your side I would have no regrets.” It’s not the first time Fenris has said something like that to Hawke, and knowing their lives, it’s far from the last. Hawke leans back just far enough to see Fenris clearly, his smile sad but warm.

“That’s not actually that reassuring,” Hawke says, but his smile is still widening. Fenris shrugs as best he can while lying on his side.

“It wasn’t meant to be. It’s just the truth.”

Hawke leans in and kisses him thoroughly, but pulls back before the kiss can get heated, sighing softly.

“I’m glad you’re here, even if I did tell Varric to tell you not to follow,” Hawke says, tucking his head under Fenris’ chin. Fenris snorts.

“Somehow that must have slipped his mind,” Fenris says dryly, and Hawke laughs.

“I missed you,” Hawke says, and Fenris refrains from reminding him that was his own fault, “I kept picturing you there with me or imagining what you’d say or do. You’d have hated the fade, I think.”

Fenris just hums agreeably and closes his eyes, glad that he’s been able to comfort and soothe Hawke back to his usual chatty self. He draws his own comfort and reassurances from the warmth of Hawke’s body and the low tenor of his voice, not to mention the place in his chest that feels full after weeks of feeling empty.


End file.
